Survivalism A-Z - Part 2

. It will probably be survivable -- more like Nuclear Fall. The 1980s studies predicting that the dust and smoke from a nuclear war would blot out so much sunlight that the earth would become an uninhabitable ball of ice were flawed. The most recent study, from 2006, assumed a limited regional nuclear war (like between India and Pakistan), and predicted global temperature drops of 2 to 4 degrees Celsius. This will still have catastrophic effects, but probably won’t cause the extinction of the human race.

To guard against Killer Caravans, you’ll want to know how to set up a serviceable roadblock and how to get around one, as well as how to use obstacles to defend your retreat. An Army field manual will teach you the tactical basics. The most important thing to keep in mind is that obstacles are only effective when they’re being observed and defended.

. Just one of the many interesting ways a nuclear explosion can kill you. When a nuke goes off, it causes tiny particles of dust and rock to explode into the air like popcorn being heated on a stove. If you’re anywhere near the explosion, these superheated particles will be hurled into your skin at high speed and raise horrible blisters over every inch of your body. The blisters will quickly become infected and you will die an agonizing death within a few days. A closed shelter with blast doors is the only real protection against popcorning, but in a pinch, try covering all of your exposed skin with cloth as soon as you see the bright light of the nuclear explosion.

UARANTINE.

When the avian flu pandemic or bioterror plague hits, don’t count on government quarantines. You should be prepared to quarantine yourself for months at the first sign of an epidemic. This means cutting off as much contact with the outside world as possible, and wearing rubber gloves and masks any time you have to leave your retreat or even check your mail.

Even if you can’t live in your retreat full-time, you’ll need an isolated, wellstocked spread to bug out to WTSHTF. James Wesley Rawles, the hardcore survivalist who edits the Survival Blog, recommends Idaho as the best state for an isolated retreat. He doesn’t recommend any state east of the Rockies, because of the high population density and the huge amounts of fallout the East would get in a nuclear war. You’ll want a place that’s at least one tank of gas away from any cities and not visible from any major road. It should have clean, accessible water and decent soil, and should be easily defensible by a few people. If you’re shopping around, Rawles has a site called Survival Realty, which lists properties that he has personally evaluated for survival suitability.

OLAR STILL

. These will purify or distill small amounts of water. Put a bucket in a hole in the ground, surround it with either soil and plant matter or dirty water you want purified, and cover the hole with a sheet of transparent plastic. The sun’s heat will cause clean water to condense into the bucket very slowly.

OMMY TACTICAL

. AKA Armchair Commando: a survivalist who obsesses over guns and combat tactics while neglecting other essential skills and preparations. These guys claim to need their ten exotic assault rifles to protect their homes from the rover packs who will be trying to steal their food and rape their daughters. But when society collapses and the Tommy Tacticals run through the one case of MREs they have stored, they’ll form the bestarmed killer caravans around.

RINE.

If you’re dying of thirst, you can drink a limited amount of it, but there’s more. Your pee is basically a sterile saline solution, so it can be used as eyewash if you don’t have clean water. Its high nitrogen content also makes it a good plant fertilizer: just dilute one quart of urine with three or four quarts of water and pour it on. One batch will have a noticeable effect on your crops.

How to get the stockpiles of antibiotics and other prescription drugs you’ll want post-WTSHTF in advance, since no doctor is going to write multiple prescriptions for you? Well, survivalists have noticed that animals take some of the same antibiotics as humans. If the fish in your backyard fish-pond were sick, for example, a sympathetic vet might write you a prescription for an industrial-sized bottle of the antibiotic erithromyicin, which happens to work for all sorts of human illnesses, too.

ILDERNESS SURVIVAL

. This should really be a whole separate guide. Learning wilderness survival and primitive skills should be as much of a priority as all the stockpiling and prepping. The best you can hope for WTSHTF is to get to an isolated place far away from the cities and the rover packs, but once you’re there, you’d better know how to build a fire and a shelter, navigate, trap, fish, make tools and weapons, etc.

Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. One of the many drug-resistant bacteria that are popping up around the world, any one of which could become the superplague that does us in. XDR-TB is a new strain that is resistant to all of the antibiotics used to treat TB, and has an extremely high mortality rate. It’s big in South Africa, and has started to appear in Europe. Right now, it’s mostly affecting HIV patients, and doesn’t transmit very well in healthy populations, but it could easily mutate and cause a pandemic.

OYO.

You’re On Your Own. The moment of societal collapse, when the government stops taking care of you.

OMBIES

. Everybody knows this from the movies, but it always bears repeating, because it needs to be second nature to you when the time comes: to stop a zombie, destroy the brain. Head shots only. BEN WHITE.

SURVIVALISM A - Z

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